Your Name on a Grain of Rice
by Cole J
Summary: Jack scurries through the stargate to the Alpha Site, along with the rest of the SGC survivors, to anxiously await the return of SG-1 - who had the good fortune to be off-world when Earth's end came.


**Title:** Your Name on a Grain of Rice

**Author: **Cole J

**Rating:** T

**Pairing:** Jack/Sam

**Warnings:** Apocafic; Major character death.

**A/N:** Massive kudos to my beta/html code mentor, cnidarian. Also to my tireless beta, LetitiaRichards. You two ladies are the best! This story was originally written for the Apocalypse Kree! Live Journal Challenge.

- - -

General Jack O'Neill, during his more than forty years of service as a career soldier in the United States Air Force, had prepared for all sorts of risk scenarios. Wars, the ravages of global warming disguised as cyclical climate changes, terrorist-inflicted Ebola outbreaks, zealots from outer space…. Uncle Sam had a pithy answer for dealing with all of them. In retrospect, it appeared that the dear, old man had never spent much time thinking his way through an existential risk. One that would either annihilate all Earth-originated intelligent life or forever and unalterably change their ability to survive on the planet. Furthermore, the man in the patriotic red, white, and blue suit would never have guessed that "the end" would come at the hands of a peaceful collaboration of over 1,000 learned physicists spread around world. All happily crunching data on their computers while a few guys in Switzerland watched close-up and personal as a harmless, controlled experiment went terribly wrong.

_Big bang, ya think?!_ Though the general was fond of magnets, had heard of quarks, and had experienced muon radiation first-hand when Daniel and then his grandfather, Nicholas Ballard, did their disappearing acts on P7-whatever, he was looking forward to Carter's explanation on just exactly how something so innocently called ALICE could be responsible for the end of world.

Jack had been one of the lucky ones quite literally by _accident_, though he now winced at the word as it crossed his mind in its present context. He had stopped by the SGC to await the return of SG-1 and to show off a bit. An impromptu, joyous, little happenstance gone awry. Instead of enjoying a reunion with his friends and former colleagues, he went scurrying through the gate to the Alpha Site with those that would forever be known as "the survivors". Each one grabbing what precious little they could in the way of personal possessions as they literally sprinted to the embarkation room while the self-destruct sequence ticked down. They were running away from the Earth's destruction. It was sadly ironic that leaving the gate operational posed too great a risk. That all hell might follow them through to their new "home" when their families and all that they had held dear could not.

The general stood on the ramp and watched as person after person passed by clinging onto their tiny portion of the remains of their world. Each one universally going through the gate glancing back over their shoulder. Their faces grotesquely marred by shock, mingled with fear, and hardened by grief. _Interesting what people will grab in haste when they know they can never come back_, he thought, subconsciously shielding himself from any emotional contact with the men and women making their exit. Photos of loved ones left behind to face the holocaust without them, extra pairs of boots, a surprising number of American flags, pairs of clean boxers. Those were the more logical choices clutched in the arms of those who sped past him. Then there was the illogical. The big honkin' wrench that Sgt. Siler had brought with him. _Yeah, I'm sure there will be plenty of massive plumbing where we're going,_ Jack thought acerbically. _To each his own. Come to think of it, I'm luggin' some pretty weird cargo in my ditty bag…._

- - -

The early hours on "New Earth" – the name having been coined almost immediately upon arrival at the off-world base because "Alpha Site" was just so…cold…impersonal…sterile – were spent frantically establishing order and taking stock of supplies. Jack hardly had time to think of his own concerns, as all deferred to him as the highest-ranking officer even though he was officially newly retired.

As night arrived and movement stilled, a pall of silence fell over the base like a heavy, smothering blanket. There was finally nothing left of immediacy to do. Some sought private places in which to weep bitter tears before falling into exhausted, dreamless oblivion. Others lay sleepless, pondering the hasty last words they longed to have uttered to loved ones who no longer existed. Either way, the new SGC was dark, grim, and reeked of survivor's guilt.

Jack was experiencing a different kind of survivor's guilt. Sure, he was sorry that the president and those he worked with in D.C. had perished and he had not, but that had little to do with his odd sense of remorse. Rather, he felt guilty over the fact that he didn't lose those he loved the most. His "family" was still intact and would eventually make their way to the Alpha Site when they couldn't get a lock on Earth's gate. Daniel, Carter, Teal'c, and the rest of SG-1 would soon arrive with their Marine Corps babysitters, otherwise referred to as SG-3.

The last time he had talked with Sam, she was all a-twitter about some barren, wasteland planet – insignificant except for its evidently unprecedented levels of easily minable naquadah. They were due to return from "a simple in-and-out recon." The mere words made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Way too many memories of Gilligan-esque tours of ruins – and stays in Goa'uld holding cells – that lasted much longer than three hours.

Rather than dwell on his neck's itchy, tickly feeling, Jack lay on his cot staring up at the gray cement overhead. Trying not to hate the word "science". Hoping that the end had come so quickly that no one was aware of their impending demise. Praying to the same God that had allowed the apocalypse…. Asking for a few favors, rather than uttering curses. Requesting that his fellow expatriates would be blessed with the strength to move past their grief and create new beginnings elsewhere in the galaxy. Most of all, begging Him to watch over his extended family as they made their way "home".

- - -

The pre-dawn hours found Jack restlessly wandering the silent halls when "offworld activation" sounded over the loud speakers. Having re-established General Landry's rightful control over the base, thereby returning himself to the status of civilian, Jack fought back the urge to run to the gateroom. The returning teams would have to pass medical exams, be briefed, and debriefed before he would be allowed to see them, anyhow. There was no reason to hurry and he didn't want to get in the way. It wasn't until he heard "medical team to the gateroom" boom frantically through the speakers that he was reminded of that awful, niggling sensation he had felt earlier.

- - -

From what he could piece together, some minor, inconsequential, churlish Goa'uld looking to claim new territory took both SG teams hostage. Carter, Mitchell, and Teal'c, along with SG-3, waited for what they thought was the right moment to escape the holding cell and stage a coup. In the process of their gaining the upper hand, a stray staff blast had caught a crucial portion of the ship's drive controls. Not even Carter, with all of her incredible, "on-the-fly" intelligence, could keep the vessel from crashing.

When the dust had settled, the only survivors were three members of SG-3 and two members of SG-1. After stumbling through the desert for nearly two days to reach the gate, Cameron Mitchell, Vala Mal Doran, and what was left of SG-3 literally fell through the puddle onto the steps of the Alpha Site dais, themselves crashing down beneath the burdens they had been carrying. The bodies of Colonel Reynolds, Daniel Jackson, Colonel Samantha Carter, and Teal'c. They had learned from the master that "no one gets left behind."

- - -

Jack O'Neill never thought that he would be the one sitting at Daniel's, Teal'c's, and then finally Sam's funerals. It was all wrong… his three best friends gone in a senseless battle over some dusty, sandy, worthless piece of crap planet. "Regrettable collateral damage…." That's what his fellow Washington bureaucrats would have called it in the letters of condolence. Their names would have been lost amid a shuffle of others archived as reasonable losses from battles waged to win the war. A war he no longer had the stomach to fight.

He never thought the pain of losing his son to a bullet from his own service revolver could ever be trumped. He was wrong. Sara was dead. And her father. Everyone on Earth who wasn't able to run through the stargate had perished. And, as he sat through the funerals of his friends and fellow warriors, though he tried to buck up and be the good soldier, his mind kept asking the logical questions over and over. _Why couldn't it have been me? I am the more senior veteran. The risk-taker. The seasoned ace. Why wasn't I the one to step through the gate and take on the other worlds instead of being the administrative official who allocated Earth's resources – a fancy way of saying, "The one to send them off to die."_ He was in a very dark, morose place where repetitive loss longed to be replaced by numbness.

And now he sits at the final funeral – that of Colonel Samantha Carter, PhD., astrophysicist – at least that was all that the future inhabitants of this new world would learn of the woman he considered to be the bravest, most intelligent warrior he had ever known. A true unsung hero soon to be buried and forgotten by most here on a planet that only passed as a weak imitation of "home". She should have had her much-deserved place in Arlington National Cemetery on Earth where all great American heroes were laid to rest. But maybe this is better. Instead of being lost amid the rows and rows of starkly white, cookie-cutter, military-issue headstones, she would be buried beneath a lovely, old oak. _God, how I hate trees._

As he stares at the flag draped over his wife's makeshift casket, he shields his infant son's ears from the roar of the twenty-one-gun salute.

End

**Prompt:**

_"I am a father, a son and a restless spirit_

_I can see the light but I can never get near it_

_What good is my love song_

_If you ain't around to hear it_

_I see the fighter planes tearing' across the desert sky_

_Do I curse them or cheer them on?_

_I still can't decide…._

_But the silence they leave behind_

_Sounds like what I feel inside…"_

(_Your Name on a Grain of Rice_ - Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers)


End file.
